I was just talking about this the other day to a friend. My point was that, despite the headlines from Iraq (and even Afghanistan if something bad happens to us), there are many other battles being fought in many other places, one of them eastern Africa. Some of the battles are covert “black ops”-type missions by special forces and the like. Many more of them are spy and intel jobs across the globe. Much of our foreign aid is either a bribe or a carrot to nations sitting on the fence.

And then there are the veterinarians.

Strategy Page on the Horn:

This theater of the war has a grand total of 1,400 personnel operating in an area five times larger than Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Yet, these 1,400 personnel are dealing al Qaeda serious strategic blows in a major offensive that is just as important as those in Iraq and Afghanistan. The organizations that have affiliated with al Qaeda need recruits, due to the fact that they are suffering heavy casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. Villagers who have had their goats treated by American veterinarians or who have seen American soldiers spend five months drilling a well, are not likely to flock to the banner of al Qaeda. They will be just as likely to tell the Americans, who came to help them improve their lives, that there have been terrorist recruitment efforts. The recruiters will then be followed, and more intelligence will be acquired before various al Qaeda cells get rolled up.

While this is no doubt the plan, we need to keep in mind that not all of our efforts will be as successful as this seems to indicate. Many of our enemies will only too-eagerly allow us to drill wells for them or treat their goat, with no intention of every repaying us with kindness or even neutrality. Still, these efforts are relatively inexpensive and will work more often than not.

Worst case scenario if we drill a well for a village and treat all their goats? They think Americans are simply stupid for giving away free labor to people who will continue to hate them. But the worst case scenario in a military operation is much worse, even if the military operation is justified and goes perfectly.

Just remember that we’re only seeing a very thin slice of what’s happening (that’s colored by the lenses of Legacy Media) and that many of the battles don’t look like battles at all.

Comments

I’m more worried about Africa in general than Iraq… Iraq seems to be more or less under control. Parts of Africa seems to be sliding into chaos. Mugabe will probably succeed in starving his whole country soon along with a bunch of other abuses and genocide is taking place elsewhere. Where’s the media outrage? Where’s the finger pointing? Where’s the uninformed babble? Seems to me they have an extreme case of tunnel-vision. I’m worried that if this sort of thing keeps happening unabated it will become a breeding ground for all sorts of things (disease, abuse, terrorism, communism, etc.)